Did you hear about rickets making a comeback? Rickets! How did that happen? Should we start painting crosses on doors, put our deceased onto wooden carts, get right back into the dark ages?

When I was growing up, adults occasionally muttered about rickets, but it already had a faraway, almost medieval air. Or it was something that happened to undernourished 18th-century workhouse mites? Better postwar nutrition had all but seen it off, depositing it on the list of ailments of yore, along with smallpox and the bubonic plague. A case of bye-bye rickets, and good riddance.

Well, not any more. Cases of rickets have risen fourfold since studies from the mid-1990s (from 183 to 762). Moreover, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) reports that half of Britain's white population, up to 90% of the multiethnic population, and a quarter of children, are suffering from vitamin D deficiency, the main cause of rickets.

The RCPCH proposes that food should be fortified with vitamin D to reach children and other vulnerable groups, and for greater general awareness. Fair enough, but is this just an awareness-raising issue, or also about politics and poverty?

It doesn't help that vitamin D deficiency is complex. No one seems to know why there is such a high incidence among certain ethnic groups. There has been debate about burqas but they are only being worn by females of certain groups, and after the age of 13. Elsewhere, parents don't suncream their mollycoddled kids all year round! (It's a miracle if they even remember on hot days.)

Similarly, even if you're not vegan, it's said to be impossible to get enough vitamin D from food – but is this any more true in 2012 than in the past? Nor does the sun seem less available now than in the mid-90s (climate change would suggest the opposite). So, why rickets in Britain, and why now?

Well, call me paranoid, but it seems probable that vitamin D deficiency is part of a wider cultural malaise, emanating from rising poverty and its evil twin, malnourishment, leading to all-encompassing vitamin deficiency, not just vitamin D.

Families on benefits are supposed to get free vitamins but the RCPCH say that, while the take-up is poor, supplies are also low.

Then there's the 2011 Family Food survey, which says that, since the recession, people are buying 10%-20% less fruit and vegetables, and much less fresh milk, bread, and fish.

Meanwhile, the Children's Society reports that 72% of teachers it surveyed see children who have not only skipped breakfast but also have no lunch or the means to pay for one. In many cases, teachers are paying for pupils' food, so they are not hungry in class.

This is just one week's worth of reports. A picture is forming, and that picture does not seem a million brush strokes away from the inglorious rise of rickets, and widespread vitamin deficiency.

Nor does it seem likely that lack of public awareness is the only issue, or even the main one. For struggling recession-hit families, skirting nourishment isn't a lifestyle choice. Nor are these people too dumb to know what's required for good health. Such decisions are clearly being made on economic grounds.

Certainly, it has to be shaming that, in the era of the smartphone and the Heston Christmas pud, society is regressing back to 18th-century diseases that were sent packing back when Britain had barely put its ration book away.

Indeed, anyone in government now must feel wonderfully proud to see the rise of rickets on their watch. So, rickets again – how did that happen? It seems that the only sane answer is: exactly the same way it did before.

Strictly speaking, it's unfair to call Denise a cheat

It's about time Chris Evans apologised to Denise Van Outen for coming out with that codswallop about her "experience" giving her an unfair advantage on Strictly Come Dancing.

To put the kind of modern dance Van Outen encountered as a young pupil at Sylvia Young in the same bracket as ballroom is risible. Likewise, Van Outen's Roxie Hart in Chicago had one big number but no pairings, while her other West End parts involved zilch dancing. Or did Tell Me on a Sunday's original star, Marti Webb, sneak in the odd paso doble when the audience were rustling in their Maltesers boxes?

Sure, it's only a show, but an issue of fairness lurks beneath the sequins. Strictly has given X Factor a distinctly inelegant kicking in the ratings for some time. Producers have their pick of contestants and would spot a cheat who can already dance.

As it is nearing the final, Van Outen could be out for no good reason. Moreover, she's being made to look petulant and guilty as she tries to explain when, actually, it's the truth. The problem was not Van Outen's "unfair experience", rather Evans's ill-informed gob. Not strictly fair, Mr Evans.

Put a cork in it, you red wine poseurs

You might need a drink before you read this (gerrit dahn yer!). A report from France's Wines With Style website claims that the colour of wine you favour reveals your personality and social status. However, it's biased in favour of red aficionados, who are said to be confident, adventurous high earners. Well, get them. Meanwhile, white fans are under-achieving bores. Thanks. And rosé drinkers are barely educated idiots who are always checking their Facebook. Well, we all knew that.

What a crock. This study does not take into account the people who drink everything. Nor the flippers who change allegiance, for whatever reason: in my case, age-related super-hangovers, which are vicious to a huge degree. Try to imagine waking up with a griffin eating your head.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I also dilute the wine with sparkling water. Yes, I know. This exposes me as so feeble and past it perhaps someone should take my pulse because I may actually have died a few years ago.

Despite these harrowing revelations, it's my firm belief that, past a certain age, red wine is the tipple of the secretly pathetic. Have you seen older people drinking red wine – all that posing, swirling and droning about "the bouquet"? All this to disguise the fact that they're not actually drinking any of it. They are fake drinking,

Meanwhile, the likes of me sit there with our tragic white wine-cum-Highland Spring concoctions, as if to say: "I'm too old to binge drink, but I'm giving it my best shot." It might not be pretty, but it's honest. Compared to this, most red wine drinkers are a bunch of lying sissies – dare I say, just the sort of people who would cravenly fib to wine companies in studies.